News from 2012

This week, we join hands with our friends from Labour Behind The Label, SumOfUs, USAS, People and Planet, Ms Wanda, ILRF and many more to tell adidas to stop throwing around excuses. We want them to finally pay up the US$1.8 million of severance payments they owe the Kizone workers in Indonesia. The Kizone factory closed in April 2011, leaving 2,800 people out of work and without pay. It's time for a global Week of Action!

For over eight months groups of Hey Tekstil workers have protested in Istanbul for their unpaid wages, severance and other payments from Li & Fung, one of the world’s largest garment trading companies. Li & Fung was sourcing almost all of the production at Hey Tekstil for one brand: Esprit, when the workers were fired without pay.

The Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) calls on the German textile discounter KIK to pay a fair and just compensation for all the victims of the garment factory fire at Ali Enterprises in Pakistan. The immediate relief payments that KIK promised are urgently needed and welcomed, but the amount pledged covers less than 4% of what ultimately will be needed.

Gap Inc. has refused to participate in a comprehensive fire safety program, to which two other major apparel brands have already committed, to address the deadly working conditions at its supplier factories in Bangladesh.

Since 2006 at least 500 Bangladeshi garment workers have died in factory fires while sewing clothing for giant fashion companies, like Gap and H&M.
Future tragic deaths could be prevented if companies like Gap would follow the lead of brands like Tommy Hilfiger and the German retailer Tchibo, by agreeing to a fire safety program that includes really independent inspections, mandatory repairs and renovations of safety hazards, a central role for workers and unions, transparency and binding commitments to protect workers.

A documentary revealing the miserable conditions faced by Cambodian factory workers producing goods for the fashion retailer H&M was aired on Swedish national television last night. Campaigners and the media are calling on H&M to respond to allegations of poverty pay in the industry.

Anti-sweatshop campaigners from the US and Europe today united to condemn a summit to be held in Lausanne, Switzerland on Tuesday organised by adidas, intended to deal with the issues workers face when its supplier factories close. Whilst United Students Against Sweatshops, the Clean Clothes Campaign, War On Want and People & Planet welcome comprehensive, long-term solutions to workers’ rights abuses in adidas’ supply chain, they say the summit is “fundamentally flawed” and an “empty rhetorical gesture” as workers in Indonesia that made adidas products have been waiting for severance payments for over a year.

CCC calls on Bratex management and buyers Fruit of the Loom and Viania to resolve a dispute in the factory, which has been ongoing for more than two years. Sri Lankan supplier Bratex has yet to come to an agreement with workers, meaning 31 workers remain without jobs, and workers' demands in relation to wages, bonuses and freedom of association have still not been met. The year long investigation of the Fair Labor Association FLA has failed to produce any results.

The South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority, the largest public procurer in the health sector in Norway, publicly supports a number of dismissed Thai workers at Mölnlycke Health Care (Thailand) Ltd. The company which produces hospital gowns sacked 22 unionized workers in September 2011 following their participation in what the gown manufacturer describes as an 'illegal strike'.

On Tuesday 11th September almost 300 workers were killed when a fire ripped through the Ali Enterprises factory in Karachi, Pakistan. At the time of the fire the factory was producing jeans for the German low cost retailer, KIK, which has more than 3000 stores in eight European countries.

One month after our petition with nearly 50,000 signatures was handed over to adidas by US and European activists, the sports brand issued a statement saying how they intend to respond to the outstanding US$1.8million in severance payments owed to former Kizone workers in Indonesia.

Hong Kong-based brand Esprit was a big buyer from the Hey Tekstil factory in the months before closure last February. An estimated 80-90% of the clothes made at Hey Tekstil in Turkey were for Esprit. Sacked workers are still waiting for back wages in the picket line in Istanbul.

US Cornell University announced that they will severe their contract with adidas from the beginning of October 2012, becoming the first U.S. university in history to terminate an agreement with the German company over labour rights. Cornell’s decision comes nearly a year and a half after PT Kizone, an adidas supplier factory in Indonesia, shut down unexpectedly in 2011. The closure left nearly 3,000 workers without $1.8 million in legally-owed severance. Adidas still refuses to pay up.

The Clean Clothes Campaign today express their shock and outrage at the failure of German company KIK to ensure that workers in its supplier factories are employed in safe working conditions after it was confirmed that Ali Enterprises, which last week burnt down killing almost 300 people, was producing jeans for the low-cost retailer.

Human rights and labour organizations today urge that magazine editor and human rights defender Somyot Prueksakasemsuk be immediately released from 17-month pre-trial detention. If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison under Article 112 of the Criminal Code (the lèse-majesté law) for the publication of two articles deemed insulting to the monarchy. The group further called on the Thai authorities to uphold international standards of freedom of expression, and to stop using Article 112 and arbitrary detention to criminalize or restrict free speech.

The Clean Clothes Campaign started a Europe-wide campaign called No More Excuses to demand companies pay sweatshop workers in Cambodia enough to lift them out of poverty. Campaigners in 11 European countries will work together to call on popular brands to pay a living wage to workers. You can help!